As most people were shaking off their New Year’s hangovers, or thinking about taking down the Christmas tree, the competitive curlers across the country were busy playing games, trying to qualify for their various provincial and territorial finals. For many of the successful teams, the last hurdles in the quest for a place in the Scotties Tournament of Hearts or the Tim Hortons Brier begins this week. You can find a complete television schedule for the various provincial championships by clicking here.

LAS VEGAS — Going to bed behind in the overall standings on Thursday night at the World Financial Group Continental Cup, presented by Boyd Gaming, did not sit well with Team North America skip Rachel Homan.

Revenge was sweet for Val Sweeting Saturday afternoon. The Edmonton skip responded from being dispatched to a tiebreaker by Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones on Friday to book a spot in Sunday’s women’s final at the 2015 Home Hardware Canada Cup, presented by Meridian Manufacturing, in Grande Prairie, Alta. Sweeting defeated Jones 5-3 in Saturday afternoon’s semifinal before a pro-Sweeting crowd at Revolution Place. Team Sweeting will play Rachel Homan’s Ottawa-based team, which ran up a 5-1 record to finish first in the round-robin, in Sunday’s women’s final (11 a.m. MT). “They’re (Homan’s team) playing well, but I thought we had really ...

What a difference 48 hours makes. It was only two nights previous the situation for Jennifer Jones’s team from Winnipeg didn’t look good. They’d lost their opening two games on Wednesday at the 2015 Home Hardware Canada Cup, presented by Meridian Manufacturing. But by Friday evening she was all smiles. After that opening day, Jones, third Kaitlyn Lawes, second Jill Officer and lead Dawn McEwen went on to win four consecutive games to finish second in the round-robin and advance to the semifinal Saturday (1:30 p.m.). Jones completed her turnaround by downing Val Sweeting of Edmonton 9-3 in Friday’s evening ...

Team Jones is back on track at the 2015 Home Hardware Canada Cup, presented by Meridian Manufacturing. After a miserable 0-2 opening day at Revolution Place in Grande Prairie, Alta., the reigning Canadian champs from Winnipeg — (Jones, third Kaitlyn Lawes, second Jill Officer, lead Dawn McEwen and coach Wendy Morgan) — earned what can only be described as a must-win in the compressed round-robin draw, beating Tracy Fleury’s team from Sudbury, Ont., 9-4 on Thursday morning. The win kept Team Jones’s hopes alive for a playoff berth, but the five-time Scotties Tournament of Hearts champion knows her team doesn’t ...

Winnipeg skip Reid Carruthers is used to facing the top men’s teams in the world. This weekend at the Canad Inns Mixed Doubles Classic in Portage la Prairie, Man., however, he discovered that the women can be just as tough.

Over the last few seasons, there have been two names consistently atop the women’s leaderboards. Two-time Scotties champion Rachel Homan (Ottawa) and 2015 Scotties champ, and 2014 Olympic gold-medallist Jennifer Jones (Winnipeg).

With the Players Championship underway in Toronto this week, there is no shortage of storylines to follow. Some teams are playing their first event with a new lineup (Toronto’s John Epping). Some teams are playing the last event with an old lineup (Penetanguishene, Ont.’s Glenn Howard). And other teams are just playing their last event (Winnipeg’s Jeff Stoughton)… for now.